For the post few years I’ve dedicated myself to preserving and promoting Maryland’s LGBTQ+ community history. Within this is a project to document the thousands of men whose lives were ruined by anti-gay entrapment schemes by cops in the 60s-00s. The damage is astronomical. 1/7

Lots of ruined careers. Lots of suicides. Lots of guys going back in the closet. Lots of guys labeled as sex offenders for asking an undercover cop to fool around. When they talk, these men are describing a horrifying and insidious form of sexual violence. That was the point. 2/7

It was always the same: undercover cop in a cruising spot would start hitting on guys and when they asked him to go to the woods, their car, their home, they would be arrested and have their names, occupations, and addresses published along with vague sex crimes the next day 3/7

The worst in this state was the @AACOPD, who labeled their late 90s stings “operation clean sweep.” In 1997 alone they did this to at least 93 men that I have names for, ranging in age from teenagers to late 60s. Many cops involved are still cops. Monsters, all of them. 4/7

This isn’t no big deal. This is a monstrous atrocity done to members of our community for decades. And it was recent enough that I, age 34, was hearing how this stuff was reported—remember George Michael?—when I was figuring out my own sexuality. It is a collective trauma. 5/7

So I don’t take it lightly when people pull this exact kind of scheme. And while it’s upsetting to see lgbtq+ people fall for it, everyone makes mistakes. What’s far more upsetting is the number of LGBTQ+ young adults equivocating and doubling down on this sexual violence 6/7

I’ve never really been in a position where I broadly felt disappointed by younger LGBTQ+ people. But when you see this kind of trauma happen in real time, and see consensual sexual activity between adults described as predation and pedophilia, I just wonder what went so wrong 7/7